Sunday, August 24, 2008

Maintaining this blog doesn't really require much effort from me, as evidenced by the infrequency of my posts and their generally low quality. However, feeling guilty about not updating the site is surprisingly time consuming. In addition, my situation as a cyclist is much changed since I started Bike Year, as described in my last post. So for now, I've decided to discontinue updating the site and reallocate the time and mental energy I previously used worrying over it. I'm going to need all I can get as a new doctoral student. I will continue posting, often about bicycle related issues, at Sustainable Savannah.

I recognize that folks still somehow find their way Bike Year (again, despite my failure to update it) and sometimes find it useful, so I'm not planning to take it down. I hope to pick it up again after the end of fall semester in December. Maybe I'll even offer another installment of the Tentative Utility Cyclist Gift Guide series, which the all-seeing eye of Google Analytics tells me are some of the most viewed posts on the site. Before I go away, however, I'd like to answer Adam's questions. He wrote:

"I moved here in May and am planning to join you in your commuting as soon as I get a bike for it. Besides Habersham and Lincoln, are there any other streets that you know of that have bike lanes or perhaps know of a map of Savannah with bike lanes marked? Also, I think it would be nice to have a list of places that have bike racks in town. Any idea if such a list exists?"

Welcome to Savannah, Adam! The answers to both your questions are yes and no.

First, as you have no doubt discovered, Savannah has very few pavement marked bicycle lanes. However, you can see a map of all designated bike routes in the county by downloading the 2000 Chatham County Bikeway Plan from the Metropolitan Planning Commission Web site. Click here for the .pdf. A word of caution about this document: As the title suggests, it is nearly a decade old and in dire need of updating.

Another option is a map created earlier this year by the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority as part of its Dump the Pump alternative commuting promotion. Kristin Hyser may have some left over. She can be contacted through the SDRA Web site. Or you can download a .pdf by clicking here.But another caveat: The map shows bike route and rack locations only in the National Historic Landmark District. And it will be out of date soon, as the City of Savannah will be deploying new bike racks, thanks to the hard work of the city's director of parking and mobility and daily bicycle commuter, Sean Brandon.

I suppose, Adam, the real answer to both your questions is the Savannah Bicycle Campaign. Bicycle facilities, including parking, are high on the group's priority list. Please consider getting involved or coming out for one of our events. We'd love to have your help in making Savannah a better place for cyclists, which will make it a better place for everyone.

About Bike Year

Bike Year began on July 1, 2005 as a record of my efforts to use a bicycle, rather than a car, for daily errands. Originally imagined as a one year diary, it continues today as a repository for information about utility cycling and bicycle commuting in Savannah, Georgia. It was restarted on June 2, 2010, in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.